


Golden Vertigo

by Willow Mae (NelwynP)



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
Genre: Choking, F/M, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Past Brainwashing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:33:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29571096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NelwynP/pseuds/Willow%20Mae
Summary: Kunzite has suffered relapses into his dark self, but never in the sight of those he loves. In the aftermath of a brainwashed attack on Mina, he struggles to come to terms with how this affliction will affect their lives going forward, and if he'll ever be worthy of forgiveness.
Relationships: Aino Minako/Kunzite
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	Golden Vertigo

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2006 Ficathon. I was given 3 things to incorporate into the fic: a cookoo clock, a pineapple, and stiletto shoes. It was definitely a challenge, and maybe makes the story read a little strangely.

He counted heartbeats. His heartbeats. He was still alive, and the world started to focus.

_1…2……3..4…5……6…_

It was a cuckoo clock that she had found for him at a flea market years ago, with some silly comment about how he needed to lighten up and laugh at least once every hour. He’d taken it because it was impossible to resist her golden smile, and she had come back to his apartment and overseen the installation. Of course somewhere in the course of all her dictations of where it should hang on the living room wall and his consequent dragging a stepstool back and forth across the floor, they had dropped it and dislodged some of the gears. Since then it had never quite kept a steady rhythm, seconds falling a moment too early or a moment too late to follow properly. They had laughed together and placed it on the shelf instead, falling back on his white leather couch to watch it chime the hour. He’d had his arms around her then too, her golden hair capturing his fingers and her lips captivating his eyes when the bird finally poked its head out to toll the time.

He had always meant to take the clock in and get it fixed, partially because the static ticks would grate on his nerves whenever he was alone in the apartment, and partly to show her how much he appreciated her present. Yet somehow it always managed to elude him, and the clock remained on his shelf merrily ticking its uneven tocks. Now he was grateful for the idiosyncrasy, his mind taken completely by trying to follow the rhythm. Saitou focused his energies there, to keep himself from sinking back into that dark place in his mind, the place that refused to go away no matter how many barriers he put up, where his lips were at Beryl’s hand and his heart in a stone; that place where his eyes were still cold and his words black.

_7.8.....9...10....11..12..._

Something smelled sweet, a tangy scent that tickled the back of his throat and made his mouth water. On the floor of the kitchen, a fresh pineapple had broken open. He vaguely remembered it happening when he had his arms around her again, squeezing tightly. Too tightly. She couldn't breathe, she was gasping under his weight. Not the gasps he loved to hear every night, but something in him craved *these* gasps of hers as desperately as the others. Blood pulsed through her body, he could feel it's pressure and his eyes burned.

He could still feel the dull throb in his foot where her stiletto heel punched through the leather of his shoe and bruised him enough to make her escape from his death-grip. In those fleeting moments, he caught a glimpse of consciousness and clawed for it, but her fleeing figure enticed the darkness and all he could see was prey.

Looking back, he was surprised at how long it took her to transform. The time they spent grappling for her life on the kitchen floor dragged on for an eternity in his mind. The memory made bile rise in his throat. He had thrown her down with such force...and yes, there in the corner by the stove, the tiles had cracked. There was a little blood, but it had dried to a muddy brown. Fleetingly, he wondered if he would be able to get it all from between the millions of cracks that ran through the shattered tile.

_cuckoo, cuckoo_

She knocked him out, or he lost consciousness during his inner struggle, he couldn't remember which. In any case, she wasn't here now. Relief seeped through him, he knew she was smart enough to save herself, but still, after spending so much time with the Princess she had developed a stubborn streak, and it was possible that she would have stayed to try and help him regardless of her own safety.

Then came the slow squeeze on his heart, as traitorous thoughts hinted to him that perhaps, she didn't love him enough to stay. It was a ridiculous notion, he knew that, but the thought gnawed at him. If it had been the Prince being consumed, the Princess would not hesitate. She would stay through it all. But Mina...Mina wasn't the Princess. She was herself, and she was as smart as she was beautiful (even if she didn't always act it, he added silently with a smile).

But that small questioning voice in the back of his mind would not leave him be, and in a half daze he scooped up the gooey remnants of the pineapple and groped around on the floor until he found the keys that had been thrown from the table in the struggle.

When he reached her apartment, the lights were off. After letting himself in (using the key she had given him last month, not brute force) he resigned himself to the knowledge that she wasn't home. Not knowing where else to look he got back in his car and drove, the pineapple oozing slowly into the passenger seat beside him. The pale headlights shone limpy on the pocked asphalt road, and the lines slowly blurred into a yellow and white smudge on the edge of his vision.

He was in Usagi's neighborhood, without any real knowledge of how he had arrived there but sure of the fact that this is where he was supposed to be. Gravel crunched as he pulled into her driveway, and there was little surprise when the headlights illuminated the Princess with her arms protectively around a shaken Minako. They looked up when the light shone on them, Usagi's face holding a contained look of disapproval and Minako's face perfectly blank as she held an icepack to one swollen cheek. She held his gaze as he got out of the car, and he felt his body flush all over in a moment of shame. What could he say to her? What would she forgive?

He stood there for what seemed like forever, feeling awkward but of course not looking it mainly because he never looked awkward. Facing her, seeing what he had done; he found he had no voice. His mouth hung partway open, words aching to fly from his lips but unsure if they even had wings.

"Usagi, could you give us a few minutes?" Minako spoke from the corner of her mouth, eyes never leaving his. With a squeeze, Usagi slowly rose and returned to the house. It was clear that, should anything go wrong again, she would be there to sort out the mess.

"Minako," he started, but she shushed him with a slight roll of her eyes.

"Sit down, please. My neck is sore enough without you making me crane back to look at you." Her voice was a dry wheeze, and her attempt at black humor made him wince. Yes, the bruises on her neck were already starting to purple. He sat down on the gravel and leaned against his car, barely close enough to touch her and afraid to be any closer.

"Will you be all right?" he finally managed. She shrugged.

"I'm sure. With our luck, I'll be fine by tomorrow." she set her piercing gaze on him. "This isn't the first time it's happened, is it." There was no need to make it a question.

"Only a few times. When I've been alone, to think."

"And you didn't say anything because...?" she rolled her eyes at him. Her voice took on a hard edge. "Were you afraid he'd reject you? That you weren't strong enough?" He opened his mouth in protest, but her voice softened and she scooted closer to him. "Did you think we wouldn't want to help you?"

"No. I knew you would try," he swallowed, "and that you might fail. Likely would fail."

"The possibility of failure has never stopped us before." Her lip split when she grinned, painting her mouth with color. He wiped the rouge away with a thumb.

"I can suffer alone, but never did I want to hurt you. Or him. Or anyone. I'm a danger that I don't want to be, and don't know how NOT to be."

"Oh stop brooding!" She exclaimed. "Don't underestimate the love of your friends. Or my love."

"Back then, you should have fought me. You should have taken me out...why didn't you? In the past, you wouldn't have hesitated."

"In the past, no." She signed. "But I'm not her anymore. You're not him. Any of him. We are...our own."

He wasn't entirely sure either of them understood their discussion anymore, but they kept talking for the comfort of each other's voice. It didn't take long for her to bring a smile to his face, and he stopped wincing at the sight of her. When the sky showed it's first pink tendrils of light, he got to his feet.

"I should go," he apologized, and helped her to stand when she held her hands out to him. She brushed lingering dirt from her backside.

"All right, I'll come with you."

"Shouldn't you check in with Usagi?"

"She's probably fast asleep. Besides, you'll need help cleaning the apartment."

"But, what if--"

She stopped his possible relapse with a light kiss, and all the bruises in the world couldn't hide the radiance of her smile as she wrapped her arms around him.

"Just don't think about it." She murmured huskily, then added as an afterthought, "Unless it's to remember that if it happens again, I'm denying you sex for a full week."

"Only a week?" he grinned.

"I'm supposed to punish you, not both of us. Only a week."

They got into his car, and a serenity settled over them as they drove into the rising sun.


End file.
